Thursday, December 10, 2015

I tat! Really. I do!

You'd never know it to look at this blog though. My dearest has been in better health this summer and we did a lot of travelling around. Even when we're not doing much at all, we've spent more time wandering around shopping, mostly window shopping, just to get out and be doing something. Meniere's has kept him mostly house bound and even when he's up to moving around a lot some problems with his ankle means we don't do a lot of walking. Except this year he has been exercising and doing eye exercises that have helped enormously. Consequently there hasn't been as much sit down time as usual.

Of course keeping my Kobo loaded with library books has taken my attention as well. There's just something about having an endless supply of reading material at my finger tips that has brought out the reading monster in me. Yes I know most of it's drivel, but I still manage to go through nearly a book a day.

Usually at this time of year I get into a mad flurry of making snowflakes to send out with our Christmas cards, but as my siblings get older they have discontinued with the massive Christmas decorating. A lot of them have been making noises about decorating a tree being too much trouble so what's the point of making ornaments that won't be used. One brother hangs his on their glass doors and one sister has hers hung on the dining room mirror year round, so for them it's worth while. That cuts down by frantic snow making from a dozen to two.

I sat down and designed a snowflake for my sister last week. It didn't come out as well as I would like, but since she informed me that she is now keeping the snowflakes on her dining room table under glass it'll be okay.

I don't like the limp chains at the base of the points as they don't hold the shape properly. A large outer ring in the middle of the chain on the row before would have helped. Or small outer rings on the final row joining point to point would also give it the structure it needs. By the time I knew that, it was too late. I was already on the last round and running out of time. My sweetie was anxious to get the cards sent out so off it went.

I've been sort of working through a doily and I'm not too pleased with how it's going. It was all right up until the 7th or 8th row. The 10th row ruffled and although the 11th is pulling the ruffles in, I don't think it's enough. It may be all right with aggressive blocking, but I don't want it to need that kind of attention. The 12th row which should be just chains may fix it, but then again it may not.

I think part of the problem is that I've been doing it in fits and starts so that there's no coherent design going on. I hate cutting off rows and starting again. I have only so many hours to work on it and I resent hours being wasted. I'd rather be clever and find ways to make it work than cut it off and have to re-tat several rows. It's OK on a snowflake, but a doily has too much time invested. Besides, I need to be making snowflakes. I may just pitch it and start with a new idea.